***
Humming could be heard from inside the employee room. A man took a deep breath and hurried inside the break room. There was the figure of a girl who was flipping through the pages of a folder. A name tag on her left side of the shirt identified her as 'Mridula Sharma'. The man who'd stood there awkwardly handed her a cup of coffee. Mridula's eyebrows knitted together with surprise as she sipped the coffee.
"What do you want?" Mridula scoffed while writing down a few notes on her clipboard. A man who appeared similarly aged looked startled at her remark.
"What... I don't want anything-" The man tried to bluff his way out of the awkward situation.
"Rakesh, please." Mridula turned to him with a dead-panned face. "You never try to help me without you wanting something."
Rakesh was bewildered, he tried to come up with something to get him off the hook. "You're my sister, I can help you whenever I want, Mia!"
"But in this case..." Rakesh toyed with his shirt's button and looked at his feet.
"Called it," Mridula muttered under her breath softly.
"You know how Head Doctor Shree declined your request to increase funds for our wing?" Rakesh sighed, knowing he'd have to word his idea carefully. Mridula tried to seem unimpressed but was slightly intrigued.
"Well," He paused for a dramatic effect. "I have an idea."
"You?" Mridula remarked with a raised eyebrow with mild curiosity. "You used that dormant brain of yours, and came up with a solution?"
Rakesh snorted with sarcastic and fake laughter.
"Very funny." He uttered with a dry tone before raising his voice to add. "I can get us those funds."
"How?" Mridula's interest had peaked by now, she'd tried to convince Dr. Shree a few thousand times by now.
"A friend of mine needs a bit of help, he's willing to make a generous donation..." Rakesh wiggled his eyebrows, adding emphasis on the word 'generous'.
"What sort of help?" Mridula laid back on her chair and crossed her legs.
"He needs to lie low and heal." Rakesh was a bit jittery, knowing she was going to hate this next bit.
"I heard something about donations." A new voice enjoined the conversation with a curious tone. Rakesh whipped his head around with confusion, toward the direction of the voice.
"Uhm..." Rakesh winced and shifted on his feet.
"Hello, Doctor Shree." Mridula smiled, but her greeting wasn't very welcoming. Rakesh at that moment came up with a spontaneous idea with that 'dormant' brain of his.
"Do continue-" Doc. Shree paused for a moment, racking her brain to recall Rakesh's name.
"Rakesh." Rakesh supplied knowing that she wouldn't be able to remember her pet's name, let alone his name.
"Well, go ahead." Shree made a shooing motion with one of her wrinkled hands.
"As I said, he needs to lie low and heal." Rakesh started once more, trying to ignore the circumstances he had to speak with.
"So, I offered our wing as a solution." He finished at the speed of light, Mridula frowned and drew a breath to say something.
"First off, You do not have the permission to allow some random guy to stay at our Polio Prevention Wing." Mridula huffed, obviously annoyed with her step-brother.
"Second, who the heck is this friend of yours?" She asked with curiosity, lacing her words and tone. There was a dramatic pause in the air, Doctor Shree leaned forward in her chair wanting to know more.
"Shreyas Iyer." Rakesh blurted out and cursed himself after. Mridula's non-welcoming expression darkened to an, even more, blank face. But Doctor Shree was on cloud nine, a smile broke off her lips.
"Accepted!" Doctor Shree stood and clapped her hands gleefully. Rakesh was secretly hoping that one of her feeble bones might snap in the process. Doctor Shree was evil to the bone. She was a great head doctor for a few months after her promotion, but the change was slow and steady. She'd become a greedy black hole. Anything good would be sucked inside. Mridula frowned, unhappy with the choice that Shree made. Rakesh raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question 'Are-you-okay-with-this-?'.
"No," Mridula answered blankly and left the room. Her receding footsteps were the only noise that could be heard in the awkward silence between Rakesh and Head Doctor Shree.
"Her opinion doesn't matter here." Shree waved aside the silence, It was Rakesh's turn to frown this time.
"It does." He interrupted with a nagging voice.
"Excuse me?" The Doctor's voice raised to an indignant tone, Rakesh hurried to soothe her ego.
"Shreyas specifically asked for Mridula." He explained patiently with a hope that she might not fire him or his step-sister.
"Oh-" The doctor fell into deep thought while biting her nails.
"I'll fire her if she doesn't agree." Shree snapped her fingers with triumph and suggested.
"No!" Rakesh exclaimed with a look of horror on his face.
"I'll try talking to her." Rakesh stood up and left the employee break room without giving a chance for Shree to speak up again. Rakesh wandered the hospital looking for his sister, but there was no sight of her. He finally found her sitting outside with her face in her hands.
"Why not?" Rakesh cut to the chase, Mridula chuckled bitterly.
"He killed my best friend."
***
I'm back at it! Hope you'll love this story too!
P.S: How's the cover